


So Many Books, So Little Time

by Dusty_Forgotten



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Books, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 13:29:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4181607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dusty_Forgotten/pseuds/Dusty_Forgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a shame they're all burned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Many Books, So Little Time

A library- a haven of learning, an oasis of knowledge, somewhere to figure out what in hell a squirrel is. She was grinning since Moira told her about it. Now, 101 flings open the doors of Arlington Library, and wonders if they stock magazines, so she can find the last issue of that comic she read in the vault. The Paladins eye her warily, and her smile falls.

It takes a moment to slip back into the “Who are you, what do you want?” charade she’s used to from everyone just struggling to survive in a Wasteland. Her eyes wander over the shelves behind the Scribe as she talks. Every book, burned.

Raiders, using books for tinder, and books for toilet paper, and books for everything other than learning- which is the one thing raiders really need. One of her bullets strays, and bits of illegible typeface fly out of a new hole in a rotted book. Tires and boxes are piled up as barricades for warfare in a place of knowledge. The Lone Wanderer gets to the computer, and downloads the archive, something about the Dewey Decimal System written on posters. She doesn’t know what that is, and she guesses she never will, since the book on it’s burned.

She takes the holotape back to Moira, road-weary and sad. And Moira thanks her for how much this means, when they’re just titles and authors and promises of things the Wanderer can never have.

She pulls up the archives on her Pip-Boy. She clicks one of the titles, _A Complete Bestiary_ by Herebane Sorenshield.

It opens with a preface. It _opens_.

“Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, consisting of small or medium-sized rodents. This includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels, chipmunks, marmots, woodchucks, flying squirrels, prairie dogs...”


End file.
